CENTRAL AMERICA
Analysts
Fernando Naranjo
Former Finance Minister
Felix Delgado
Former General Manager, Central BankDatabanks
Recent Country Insights
Slowdown and trepidation
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 29 Apr 2025
El Salvador’s economic trends in 2024 looked like a return to the long-run results characteristic of the pre-pandemic decade: relatively weak economic activity, growth of 2% to 2.5% y/y; weak public sector results, leading to very high public debt; and worries about long-run fiscal sustainability...
Volatile times bringing surprising favor to the region
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 26 Feb 2025
Costa Rica dealt with an array of factors that slowed economic activity in 2024. However, real GDP growth outperformed our forecast, although growth was lower than in 2023. Domestic and external exogenous elements influenced the economic deceleration, such as a restrictive monetary policy stance ...
Preparing for global challenges
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 28 Jan 2025
Costa Rica is facing fiscal challenges that require strong policy actions to ensure long-term sustainability. Progress made in previous years improved fiscal indicators. Nevertheless, for the second year in a row there has been a slight deterioration in some fiscal data. The lack of a formal agre...
Bracing for Trump, after a reasonable 2024
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 20 Dec 2024
In Costa Rica, political confrontation between the Executive branch and Congress and the Judiciary persists. President Rodrigo Chaves’ style, which resembles that of other authoritarian and populist presidents in this hemisphere, also shares with those leaders’ popularity in the polls. Consequenc...
Worry in the runup to a second Trump administration
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 27 Nov 2024
El Salvador’s macroeconomic conditions are worsening. Economic activity has continued to be relatively stagnant, and has yet to show positive results from economic policy actions other than in some scattered indicators, such as in tourism. Foreign remittances have decelerated, while the fiscal de...
A mixed performance
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 29 Oct 2024
In Costa Rica, praise for national economic management, and early-year successful evaluations from external analysts then embraced by the official discourse, now seem premature, as the country is falling short in several macroeconomic indicators. Economic activity is still increasing nicely, but ...
Hopes deferred
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 30 Sep 2024
El Salvador’s short-term economic outlook looks less hopeful we projected in our April 2024 report, after analyzing H1 trends. Deviation from key assumptions we made in the April forecasting exercise has turned perspectives less favorable. The eventual better performance that we expected either c...
High hopes for Guatemala, as neighbors struggle
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 30 Aug 2024
In Guatemala, private sector confidence has improved since President Bernardo Arevalo took office in January, and expectations within the country are high. In Bank of Guatemala surveys, most respondents said they expected the economic situation to improve in the next six months. Arevalo is workin...
Challenging times
CENTRAL AMERICA · Report · 29 Jul 2024 · 1 response
Costa Rica experienced a deceleration in several key macroeconomic indicators during H1 2024. According to latest official data, economic activity growth slowed due to a combination of external and internal factors. Externally the economic situation was stable, with low growth rates of most tradi...